


The Only Choice

by theinvisibledisaster



Series: Haven't We Suffered Enough? [1]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Bellamy Has Feelings, Clarke Also Has Feelings, Clarke makes a speech, F/M, Fluff and Angst, I can't even express how much angst, Lots of Angst, Love Confessions, The Only Choice aka Clarke's catchphrase, bellamy being heartbroken, canonverse, clarke trying to sacrifice herself, dead poet's society/spartacus style ending, everyone else seeing it, serious angst, so many feelings, the 100 season 5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-01
Updated: 2018-07-01
Packaged: 2019-05-31 23:56:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15130568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theinvisibledisaster/pseuds/theinvisibledisaster
Summary: “No,” Clarke opened her eyes. She darted forward and picked up the sword, spinning it around her fingers.“Clarke, what are you doing?” Bellamy asked, his gaze switching to her and a frown crossing his face.“Promise me you’ll keep our friends safe. Promise me you’ll take care of Madi,” she said steadily, and realisation dawned on him. He was staring at her the way he had when he’d asked her to stay after Mount Weather, the way he had when she’d tried to talk to him before the rocket, when she’d given him her speech about the head and the heart.If Clarke and Bellamy both somehow ended up having to fight each other in the arena later in the season. OR, the one where Clarke is forced to confront her feelings for Bellamy in a big way.





	The Only Choice

**Author's Note:**

> I saw [this post](http://goodqueenalys.tumblr.com/post/175327108843/i-seriously-cannot-stop-c-a-c-k-l-i-n-g-over) a few days ago, and I couldn't stop thinking about it, so naturally I turned a humorous post into an angsty fanfic with lots of tears. 
> 
> What can I say, I'm a dramatic hoe who lives for angst.

### 

_We won't run, we can fight all that keeps us up at night_  
_There is far to go now, let's not waste a minute more in denial_  
  
_I always thought, you knew yourself better than anyone_  
_The season was lost and you started listening to everyone else_  
_Casting this devil, I've got the medal, means to make things right_  
_Tired of guilt, tired of being sorry, haven't we suffered enough?_  
  
_We won't run, we can fight all that keeps us up at night_  
_There is far to go now, let's not waste a minute more..._  
  
**We Won't Run - Sarah Blasko**

Clarke felt Miller shoving into her back, pushing her forward forcefully despite her putting up no resistance. She walked slowly towards the door, resigned to her fate. She had already decided what she had to do. She had made the decision the second she was told who she would be fighting.

_It was the only choice._

The door swung open and Miller pushed her through it, making her stumble into the arena. She didn’t fall though; strong arms caught her, held her steady, and she knew who it was before she looked. 

“I’m sorry, Clarke, I tried,” Bellamy said, and she glanced up to see his face, to see the cut on his forehead and the bruises on his cheeks. 

“Did she hurt you?” She asked, knowing the answer. 

“I poisoned her, Clarke,” he looked guilty. 

“Had to be done, she was out of control.” Clarke extricated herself from his grip and stood facing him, ignoring the crowds of Wonkru surrounding them, smashing the fences and shouting, and focussed solely on him.

“How are you here, I thought you and Madi–”

“We were captured. When we met up with Murphy and Emori, they had Raven and Shaw and Echo with them, and they tried to bring us back here. I was going to leave, but Wonkru found us first. I told Madi to surrender, to keep herself safe, but… Octavia was never going to forgive me, and I knew that,” Clarke pressed her lips together, frustrated, “she’s going to make us fight each other, Bellamy.”

He crossed his arms and glanced up at the throne where Octavia was standing, Madi at her side, “I won’t do it.”

“I know,” Clarke replied, the ghost of a smile on her lips, “I can’t kill you, Bellamy, not after everything I’ve done to keep you alive.”

He half-smiled back, but before he could say anything else, Gaia spoke.

“As we invite death into this hall, we honour it. _Omon gon oson_.”

“ _Omon gon oson_ ,” the crowd echoed back, and the words filled up the space, making the air feel thicker somehow, suffocating.

Clarke glanced around, glimpsing Raven leaning on Shaw, Echo and Emori standing together, staring back at her apprehensively, and she nodded at them. Harper and Monty were wrapped around each other, crying, and Harper ducked her head into Monty’s shoulder, refusing to look. 

Murphy was gripping the fencing, eyes darting between her, Bellamy and Octavia, clearly trying to refrain from leaping into the arena himself. Clarke locked eyes with him and the way he looked back at her gave her pause – he knew exactly what she was planning to do, and he knew he couldn’t stop her – he just shook his head, trying to tell her not to. She raised an eyebrow at him and he snarled angrily, punching the nearest post. Emori quickly reached out to him, pulling him back.

“And as always,” Gaia looked down at Clarke, something akin to sympathy in her eyes, “be the last.”

Octavia stood and threw down a sword with practiced ease, and they watched as it sailed through the air and landed between them. As it settled, clanging rhythmically against the concrete, Clarke closed her eyes and took a deep breath. The anxiety was pooling in her stomach, the anguish of yet another impossible decision to be made, herself or someone else. But of course, this decision wasn’t impossible at all; it was the easiest she’d ever made. 

“We won’t fight each other, Octavia,” Bellamy raised his voice so she could hear, looking up at his sister with defiance. 

“Then you’ll both be executed.” She responded coldly.

Bellamy grimaced, “Execute me; I poisoned you. Let Clarke live.”

“Very well,” Octavia raised a hand and a soldier with a gun pointed it down at him. 

_“No,”_ Clarke opened her eyes. She darted forward and picked up the sword, spinning it around her fingers. 

“Clarke, _what are you doing?_ ” Bellamy asked, his gaze switching to her and a frown crossing his face. 

“Promise me you’ll keep our friends safe. Promise me you’ll take care of Madi,” she said steadily, and realisation dawned on him. He was staring at her the way he had when he’d asked her to stay after Mount Weather, the way he had when she’d tried to talk to him before the rocket, when she’d given him her speech about the head and the heart.

 _“Clarke,”_ the look on his face was almost enough to make her change her mind. 

Almost. 

“Promise me,” she said, bringing the blade up to her throat.

“Clarke, don’t!” He yelled, stepping forward, but she moved back, pressing the sword in harder and he stopped, hands up between them.

“Promise me,” she repeated, eyes searching his, begging him to understand. 

“You can’t do this, Clarke! What about Madi, she needs you!” Bellamy’s pulse was making a vein in his throat visibly jump, and Clarke tried not to think about how much this would hurt him – she was saving his life, that had to be enough. 

“I’m not letting you die, Bellamy,” she swallowed, feeling the tears stinging in her eyes. 

“Please don’t do this to me again,” Bellamy was panicked, “I can’t go through that again, Clarke, _I can’t_. It nearly killed me last time. I can’t be the reason you die, not again, _please!_ ”

His voice was breaking and the terror on his face was shaking her resolve, but she kept her arm steady. 

“I didn’t sacrifice myself for you to die for me. I did it so you could _live_ , Bellamy. You have to do that. You have to live,” she breathed, tears clinging to her lashes, “I should have died six years ago. I’m living on borrowed time anyway.”

“Clarke don’t!” Madi screamed, leaning over the railing, but Octavia’s hand on her shoulder was keeping her trapped, and Clarke glanced up at her. 

“I’m so sorry Madi,” and the tears finally began cascading silently down her cheeks, as she looked up at the girl she’d raised, “I’m doing this to protect you. You and Bellamy. You have to understand, Madi. I love you too much to let you get hurt, not when I can stop it.”

“Octavia, please,” Madi looked at the woman beside her, the woman from the stories Clarke had told of the girl under the floor, but here she was almost unrecognisable. 

She only looked down at the two people she had used to care so much about, “They made their choice.”

Madi started crying in earnest and wrenched herself away from the woman she now recognised for who she was - Blodreina - and ran down to the door, but Miller stood in her way, stopping her from entering. Clarke smiled sadly; she had known that Octavia’s decision was made the second the Wonkru soldiers had spotted her talking to Murphy. She shifted her gaze back to Bellamy.

“You can’t do this,” he tried again, but she shook her head carefully. 

“I’m not killing you, and I’m not letting you be executed,” she said, standing firm, “it’s the only choice.”

 _“Goddammit Clarke, it’s NOT!”_ He looked completely destroyed, and his voice had started to sound unhinged in his hysteria, “Don’t do this! PLEASE!? I’m begging you, please don’t do this. I can’t lose you again, I can’t survive that…”

“Yes you can,” she smiled at him reassuringly, her eyes swimming with tears, “you can do anything. There’s no-one else I trust more than you, there’s no-one I believe in more. You’ll be okay.”

All the strength seemed to leave him and Bellamy dropped to his knees in front of her. He tangled his hands in his hair, yanking at it distractedly as he mouthed pleas he didn't have the power to voice, utterly heartbroken. 

She felt the responsibility of keeping him alive pressing against her, and all the times he’d protected her, the times he’d put her before his own safety came crashing into her like a tidal wave. She remembered the conversations they’d had, from hating each other to putting up with each other, to being friends, and then… she cursed herself for never saying the words to him. She’d been cursing herself for six years. She had realised before they left, when they were standing in the snow, about to split up, and she’d almost said it. But instead, she’d just told him to hurry, convinced herself that she could tell him when they were on the Ark, when they had years to be together, to grow, to move forward. 

Then she was alone. 

And she knew that she had missed her opportunity to tell him. She wasn’t even certain that he was alive, but she couldn’t lose the hope that he might be. So she started radioing him, trying to keep herself sane by talking to him as if he were there with her, snarking back like he usually would. When she was bringing up Madi, she thought of what he would do, how he would handle situations, and it helped. It made her a better mother. 

Once five years had passed, she became more and more anxious. More worried that maybe they hadn’t made it, that something had gone wrong. She would almost lose hope, and then she would hear him in her head.

_“We still breathing?”_

And she would take a deep breath and remind herself that as long as she could still do that, she would have hope. She believed in him.

“I need you,” he said, snapping her back to the present, and it was so much quieter than she expected. It was a plea, just for her, like there was nothing and no-one that mattered more than that fact. It was what she had said to him, all those years ago, when he’d killed a man for the first time and broken down, spilling his insecurities out with his tears. 

“No you don’t,” she countered, “you haven’t needed me for a long time, Bellamy.”

“I’m not letting you die for me.”

“I’m not letting you die _with me_ ,” she said softly.

“Please…” 

“She radioed you!” Madi’s voice broke through the loud noise of the crowd, startling them both.

“What?” Bellamy looked confused, glancing between the two of them, but Clarke suddenly found she couldn’t talk. 

“She radioed you, every day for six years,” Madi explained, trying and failing to duck under Miller's arm, “that was the first time I saw her – talking to you, telling you about berries that she found in the valley. She always looked happier when she was talking to you… but not since you’ve been back. Now when she looks at you, she just looks sad.”

“Madi,” Clarke sighed, trying to swallow the lump in her throat.

“You do!” She insisted, “Every time you look at him, you look lonely.”

Bellamy ran his hands over his face, coming to terms with what he'd just found it, and Clarke had to look away: it was too much. She could see Raven’s distraught expression behind him – her friend knew exactly why she was so lonely, had probably known for a long time, and she was sad for her. 

She kept her eyes on Raven, because if she dropped her gaze back to Bellamy, she thought she might lose her nerve, and then she raised her voice, “Lexa was _wrong_. Octavia is wrong! Love isn’t weakness. Its _never_ been weakness. Love is what kept us all going so long. Without Lincoln’s love for her, Octavia wouldn’t even be here.”

She turned to Blodreina, who was gripping the arms of her throne so hard her knuckles were bone white, anger etched into her features. 

“Lincoln _loved you_ , Octavia. His death was senseless and tragic, but it was caused by Pike. A man who lived his life by values that completely opposed Lincoln’s – hatred and revenge. Lincoln died at the hands of a man who saw love as weakness.”

Clarke gestured at the man on his knees in front of her. 

“Without Bellamy’s love for you, you would have died starving on the Ark.”

He sagged, his chin dropping to his chest and his hands obscuring his expression from view, and Octavia crossed her arms defiantly. Clarke glanced back to her friends, clinging to each other behind the wall.

“Without Raven’s love for Finn, she never would have been so determined to reach the ground. Monty and Harper have kept each other alive through so much – Murphy and Emori, Marcus and my mom, Miller and Jackson – you keep each other balanced.”

She took a deep breath.

“And I love you. All of you. I don’t say it enough. I don’t… I don’t _ever_ say it. Because I’m scared of what it means. I’m terrified that once I admit it, it becomes real: it becomes a weakness to be exploited. But I do – Raven, Murphy, Monty, Harper… all of you. Regardless of their ties of Wonkru, I still love Miller and Jackson and Indra. I loved _you_ , Octavia. You were my _family_. Family looks out for each other… and Madi…”

Her gaze jumped to the girl she considered a daughter, the girl she’d sacrifice anything for.

“… _I love you so much_. More than I could possibly say. Bellamy will take care of you, I promise. You’ll be okay.”

Once it finally became too much to look into the devastated face of her daughter, her eyes landed on the man in front of her. This would be the most difficult thing she’d ever done, but if she was going to die, she had to do it. Just once.

“Bellamy… I have been… I have been in love with you–”

His head shot up and he stared at her, anguish in his eyes.

“– for nearly seven years. It took me so long to admit it to myself. After Lexa, I swore I would never open up like that again, but I was foolish, and blind. I opened my heart to you before she even had a foot in the door. I loved Lexa, but I've _always loved you_. Then, once I realised… you were gone. You had always been there, and then you were just… _gone_. I should have said it sooner.”

He got to his feet and took a shaky step forward, “Clarke–”

“It’s okay,” she whispered, tears falling anew, “I know you’re not in love with me. Maybe you were, six years ago, but… you’re happy. You made a life for yourself without me in it, and that’s been hard for me since you’ve been back, but I decided it doesn’t matter. My feelings don’t factor into it. All I want is for you to be happy.”

He was just standing there, slack-jawed, along with everyone else. There was no need to shout over the crowd anymore; the jeers had long since stopped and a heavy silence had descended over the arena. 

“Just tell her,” it was Echo who was stepping forward, Echo who shoved Miller aside to step into the pit. Madi tried to follow, but Miller caught her around the middle and dragged her back from the door. She stopped a few feet from him, and Bellamy’s gaze flicked to her. She sounded sad, resigned, “it’s okay, Bellamy. Just tell her.”

Time stood still for a moment as he wrenched his eyes back to Clarke, light shining off the tears on his own cheeks. 

“For god’s sake, man, _tell her!_ ” Raven yelled, letting go of Shaw and stomping into the pit after Echo while Miller was distracted, “Man up, Blake.”

“Clarke,” he started, and she felt her chest start to constrict, felt the thunder rolling through it, the monsoon building in her heart.

“No don’t, please,” she begged, “ _please_. Don’t tell me. I need to believe that if I do this, you’ll recover.”

“I won’t,” he said, and he’d never sounded so sure of anything. His eyes never left hers, and she was finding it impossible to tear her own away. 

_“Bellamy don’t–”_

“I love you,” he said, and it was like the heavens opened and thunder was crashing in her ears and rain was streaming down on her and lightning was blinding her, but she was still just standing there with a knife to her throat, dry as a bone. Her world ended, but to everyone else, nothing had changed.

The sword wavered a little. 

“Clarke, I love you more than I’ve ever loved anyone,” he took a tentative step forward, but she didn’t react. She couldn’t: she was frozen to the spot. 

“Bellamy…” she breathed.

Her arm dipped a little lower, the blade slipping inches away from her skin.

“I am _in love with you_ ,” he took another step, and another, “and I cannot lose you again.”

He managed a final step and suddenly she snapped back into reality, realising how close he was, but by that point, it was too late. He snatched the sword from her grip and threw it across the room, wrapping his arms around her to stop her from chasing it. It skidded loudly, clanging against the wall, but she didn’t hear it. 

All her senses were distracted by Bellamy being so close. Closer than he’d been since their first hug in the valley, closer than they’d been in years, his face buried in the crook of her neck, one hand tangled in her hair and the other at her waist. She couldn’t stop her own arms from curling around his shoulders and she felt herself sinking into his frame as he embraced her. 

She could hear his heaving breaths in her ear, mingling with her own pounding heartbeat. 

He smelled of something she’d tried to hold onto over the years, a smell which she couldn’t ever recreate, but which lived in her memories and sparked in lost moments.

The thunder was still rolling through her, but she could feel it crashing through him as well, and the two of them stayed there, enfolded, while the storms within them both combined and raged, battling with the frantic beating of hearts against sternums, echoing each other. 

If this was the final moment she ever had, she was glad it was this. If Octavia executed her now, it didn’t matter, because there was this, and only this. 

“I love you,” Bellamy murmured, and the brush of his lips against her skin made her heart stutter. She sighed into his shoulder and his grip on her tightened, pulling her ever closer, keeping her exactly where she wanted to be. The part of her neck where his lips were resting was tingling, “Please never, ever do that again.”

“Seeing as we’re both about to die, it doesn’t seem likely,” she responded snarkily, and he pulled away. 

Before she could protest and pull him back, his lips crashed onto hers, his hand at her waist relocating to the side of her face, holding her in place. He needn’t have bothered. She melted into it, hands threading into his hair and yanking him down further, deepening the kiss. His thumb was brushing her cheek and when his tongue met hers she couldn’t help the involuntary gasp that tore from her throat. The head and the heart, moving as one. Her fingers made their way from his hair to his jaw and back again, marvelling at how his beard felt under her fingertips. When he finally wrested his lips from hers and they pressed their foreheads together, they were both out of breath. 

“If we’re going to die, I had to do that first,” he said.

She almost growled at him, “What took you so long?”

He laughed, and their breathing was still ragged, arms still woven around each other, when something struck them around the middle. They stumbled and when Clarke looked down, there were small arms clutching them and a familiar face was glaring up at her. 

“What the hell were you thinking?!” Madi yelled, “why would you do that?!”

Clarke sighed and released Bellamy, kneeling down. She looked up at Madi, stroking her hair from her eyes, “because I love you, Madi. You’re my daughter. I want to keep you safe. With me out of the way, Octavia can’t use you as leverage anymore.”

“But I would have lost you,” Madi sniffled, and Clarke pulled her into a hug.

“You’re going to lose me anyway,” she explained, “at least that way, your last memory of me could be noble, instead of senseless.”

“It’s not fair,” Madi wailed, “you can’t let her do this.”

“I have to. For you. It’s the only thing that makes sense. I’m not letting anyone else die for my mistakes.” 

“No!” Madi yelled, and she ripped herself away and stomped to look up at Octavia, still watching them from her throne. “You can’t do this!”

“They are enemies of Wonkru, Madi. I hope you do not betray us as readily as they chose to,” but there was an emotional edge to Octavia’s voice that hadn’t been there before. 

“They did what they had to do, like always,” Raven moved to Madi’s side, “they tried to stop you from doing something that was going to get everyone killed.”

“You know _nothing_ about that,” Octavia snapped.

“But we do,” Monty said, as he and Harper shoved past Miller to enter the pit.

“You wanted to start a war in the only green place on earth,” Harper said, crossing her arms.

“You were going to use the worms from the desert to kill everyone, including our friends, because Cooper told you the worms wouldn’t survive once the people were gone. _Cooper was wrong_. The worms would have decimated that valley, and then we’d still be stuck here, but you’d be a murderer, and we’d still be running out of food.”

“Clarke and Bellamy were trying to prevent the deaths of everyone here, not just their friends in the valley,” Indra said, taking a step away from Octavia’s side. Blodreina turned on her with fury, but Indra stared her down, “they did the right thing.”

“Seda?” Octavia registered the betrayal and her voice hardened, “You defy me?”

“I taught you to be better. I have been letting you lose your way for far too long.”

A murderous rage had descended on Octavia, and she had never looked more like Blodreina than in that moment, “You let them kill Cooper?”

“Clarke wanted to kill _you_ ,” Monty interrupted, drawing her attention back to the pit, “but Bellamy convinced her not to.”

“Cooper was… what did you call it? An _acceptable loss?_ ” Indra hissed, contempt in her voice. 

"They did that knowing full well that it might not work, that they might be caught. They put the lives of everyone else over their own. Again," Raven pointed out. 

Shaw walked in, manoeuvring out of Miller’s grasp when he halfheartedly tried to stop him, “From the moment I met Clarke, she was doing everything she could to keep her daughter safe.”

“Bellamy puts everyone’s interests above his own,” Miller spoke up. He had clearly given up on guarding the door, and he sauntered in, Jackson on his arm, “since the day we got to the ground, he’s made the hardest decisions, put himself in that position so the rest of us didn’t have to be.”

“Clarke injected herself with nightblood to stop her mother from irradiating me,” Emori yelled, storming in after him.

“Bellamy forgave me for everything I’ve done,” Echo said as she stepped to Raven’s other side. 

“Clarke and Bellamy have done nothing but risk their lives for us, all of us,” Murphy flashed them a wolfish grin and walked in too, holding the door open for anyone else who felt like following. His expression sobered for a moment as he studied Clarke, and that same knowing look passed between them, “even those of us who don’t deserve it.”

“She vouched for me to Skaikru – helped me make a life with her people. Without her, Wonkru wouldn't have even had the choice to exist,” Niylah said, and then suddenly it was like a switch was flicked and the arena started to fill up with more and more people; members of Wonkru that remembered something that Clarke or Bellamy had done to save them or the people they loved.

The pit was full of people, yelling out, calling for Blodreina to waive their punishment, to offer leniency over execution. Echo was talking quietly to Bellamy across the arena, but Clarke was too busy gazing around in amazement to notice. Some people came up and clapped her on the back, people she recognised as formerly in Trikru or Azgeda, people she knew from The Ark. 

“They saved our lives, countless times, at great personal cost,” Indra moved to the front of the crowd, having slipped downstairs with her daughter in all the commotion, “the least we can do is save theirs.”

“Mercy will cost you nothing, Blodreina,” Gaia said, placing a hand on Madi’s shoulder, “but your wrath might destroy everything.”

Bellamy stepped to Clarke’s side, his arm circling her waist, and she gripped at his shirt, both of them staring around at the sudden turning of the crowd against their leader, for them. 

Octavia stood and walking to the railing, surveying her people with a calculated expression. 

Clarke took a deep breath, savouring the feeling of Bellamy against her, his warmth radiating out and enveloping all her panic, all her worries. He was her constant, he always had been. Her eyes fluttered shut and his hand at her hip tensed, his fingers digging in slightly. He pressed his lips to her temple, but it wasn’t quite a kiss – he was just resting them there, keeping her close, reassuring her, and maybe himself. The pandemonium of the crowd became like a dull hum in the background as Clarke anchored herself to that moment.

“There will be no executions today,” Octavia’s voice cut through the noise of her people and then Bellamy’s lips were on hers and she kissed him back fiercely. He was her lighthouse in the stormiest ocean and he was all she could see. 

No matter what happened, she loved Bellamy Blake.

And he loved her back.

**Author's Note:**

> So that was intense! 
> 
> If you'd like a version of this from Bellamy's POV, let me know!
> 
> I hope you enjoyed it, and thank you so much for reading! Feel free to come yell at me on my [main](https://talistheintrovert.tumblr.com/), or my [writing](https://introvertedtaliswrites.tumblr.com/) tumblr.


End file.
